Innovative Bihar farmer makes it to South Africa, via Facebook

A Bihar farmer who set a paddy cultivation record has been hired on a five-year contract by the South African government to train farmers there in the innovative System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method for which he will be paid the equivalent of Rs.50,000 (8,800 rand/$826) a month - all thanks to Facebook.

"It is Facebook that helped me to get this rare opportunity to train farmers of South Africa to grow paddy by using the SRI method," Sumant Kumar, a farmer in Darveshpura village in Nalanda district, who had created a World record in 2011 by producing 224 quintals of paddy per hectare using the method, told IANS on the phone Tuesday.

Sumant, who has studied till class 12, said that South African officials contacted him through his Facebook page, after which they telephoned him.

"Things materialized following several rounda of discussions and representatives of the South African visited my native village for signing of a formal contract with me (on Aug 19)," he said.

"I am going to South Africa in October to start my new innings abroad. It is first time that I would be visiting a foreign country. I will receive a monthly salary (the equivalent) of Rs 50,000 and five percent of the profit generated by paddy cultivation," he added.

Sumant is the first farmer of Bihar who attracted attention outside the country for his record in paddy cultivation. Munich-based journalist Vetina Vez has said that her documentary will highlight organic farming as well as the SRI method used by Sumant and thousands of farmers in Bihar that uses less water but triples yields.

In 2013, President Parnab Mukherjee presented Sumant the Krishi Karman Award, while the Punjab government has also honoured him.

According to the SI-India website, the method "is a combination of several practices those include changes in nursery management, time of transplanting, water and weed management. Its different way of cultivating rice crop though the fundamental practices remain more or less same like in the conventional method; it just emphasizes altering of certain agronomic practices of the conventional way of rice cultivation".

"Norman Uphoff from Cornell International Institute for Food and Agriculture, Ithaca, ad brought this method to the notice of the outside world in the late 1990s. Today SRI is being adopted in many states in India and the response from farmers has been overwhelming seeing the benefits of the method," the website says.

Bihar Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh said that successful use of the SRI methof cultivation to boost production has impressed experts within and outside the country.

Initially, the farmers were reluctant to adopt this new technique despite the state government providing free seeds, fertilizers and experts to guide them. But now, more and more farmers are taking to this method.

Source: BT

Meet Bihar teachers who got their B.Ed before they were born

L B Singh, a teacher at a Bihar government school in Saharsa, was born in January 1986. But he got his Bachelor of Education degree in 1979 — seven years before he was born.

Indu Kumari of Saran got her B.Ed degree seven years before her birth, while Shivnarayan Yadav of Madhepura and Priti Kumari, Tarkeshwar Prasad Singh of East Champaran achieved this distinction three years and five years before they were born, respectively.

There are at least 95 other such teachers among the 32,127 appointed by Bihar in March-April 2012, in compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2010 order to appoint 34,540 teachers, who got their B.Ed degrees either before their birth or before the likely age of 21. The vacancies were advertised by the Staff Selection Commission in 2003 but not honoured by the previous RJD government.

The number of those among the 32,127 who could have got jobs on fake or forged degrees is above 3,000, sources in the Bihar Human Resource Development Ministry told The Indian Express. Since an inquiry began in June 2012 following numerous complaints by candidates who were not selected, 306 of them have been sacked.

The minimum qualification to get the job of a regular teacher at a Bihar government school (Classes I to VIII) is graduation followed by a B.Ed degree. Between two similarly qualified applicants, whoever has got a B.Ed degree earlier is preferred for the job. A regular teacher gets Rs 32,000 a month.

Bihar Primary Education Joint Director R S Singh said:  “Of the 306 regular teachers terminated so far, 39 each are from Vaishali and Gopalganj, followed by 36 from Kaimur. We have already intensified the degree verification process for both regular and contract teachers.”

The Indian Express had reported in June that 20,000 of the 1.42 lakh contractual teachers appointed during a mass recruitment drive between 2006 and 2011 had been selected on the basis of forged educational or professional degrees.

Chief Minister Jeetan Ram Manjhi had ordered an inquiry into the appointments after The Indian Express reports. The state government that put in place a Teachers’ Eligibility Test in 2012 for contract teachers has also decided to make the appointment process more transparent through amendments in existing norms.

These new findings are concerning regular teachers. A senior HRD official admitted that they were yet to take action against most of these teachers due to the “lackadaisical pace” of inquiry.

Though the Bihar Primary Education Director wrote in April 2012 to all district education officers to ensure that the degrees of all the selected regular teachers were verified before their first salaries were disbursed, as per the Supreme Court’s instructions, HRD officials are to carry this out fully.

Source: IE